Nasrallah meets with head of Lebanon's Jamaa Islamiya

Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has met with Jamaa Islamiya chief Sheikh Mohammad Takkoush, Hezbollah said.

The meeting “tackled the latest political and security developments in Lebanon and Palestine,” a Hezbollah statement said.

Nasrallah and Takkoush stressed “the importance of cooperation among the resistance forces in the battle of assisting the valiant resistance in Gaza and its resilient and honorable people,” the statement added.

Lebanon’s Jamaa Islamiya group has joined Hezbollah in its fight against Israel on Lebanon's border, carrying out a few attacks since October 8 while also being targeted by deadly Israeli airstrikes.

Takkoush said in March that the conflict has helped strengthen cooperation between the two groups.

Takkoush said his faction decided to join the fighting along the Lebanon-Israel border because of Israel's crushing offensive on the Gaza Strip and its strikes against Lebanese towns and villages killing civilians.

Jamaa Islamiya is one of Lebanon's main Sunni factions but has kept a low profile politically over the years. It has one member in Lebanon's 128-seat legislature. Elections within the group in 2022 brought its leadership closer to Hamas.

Like Hamas, it is inspired by the ideology of the pan-Arab Islamist political movement The Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Egypt in 1928 by a school teacher-turned-Islamic ideologue Hassan al-Banna.

Takkoush said his group makes its own decisions in the field but coordinates closely with Hezbollah, and with the Lebanese branch of the Palestinian militant group Hamas.

"Part of (the attacks against Israeli forces) were in coordination with Hamas, which coordinates with Hezbollah," he said adding that direct cooperation with Hezbollah "is on the rise and this is being reflected in the field." He did not elaborate further.

While the Lebanese border area is seen as a Hezbollah stronghold and its population is primarily Shiite, it also has Sunni villages, where Jamaa Islamiya primarily operates.

Jamaa Islamiya’s use of weapons against Israel is not new. It founded its Fajr Forces in 1982 at the height of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Regarding his group's relations with Hezbollah, Takkoush said it had gone through ups and downs. They had differences regarding the conflicts in Syria and Yemen but put them aside "to resist the Israeli occupation of parts of our Lebanese territories," he said.

Takkoush added that all the weapons they use, from bullets to rockets, are from their own arsenal. "We did not get even a bullet from any side," he said.